


Five Stages

by therescuingtype



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1514876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therescuingtype/pseuds/therescuingtype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's residual damage from what HYDRA did to Bucky. Of course there is. There had to be consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Stages

**Denial**

 

“Don’t tell Steve.”

 

“I can’t. But you need to.”

 

“Not yet.”

 

It was a routine physical after a mission when Bucky decided it was finally time to ask about the headaches. After all, he’d been hit so badly with one that he’d almost ruined the entire thing. He’d been working with Captain America again - been his sidekick, his partner, for two years now. What else was a World War II veteran-turned Soviet assassin-turned _former_ Soviet assassin with a cybernetic arm supposed to do? It was an incredible work of media spin from the Stark Industries PR department: The Winter Soldier, turned back to the Americans, by sheer force of good. 

 

Six months ago he got his first headache, and ignored it. At worst, he thought, it was a concussion from the last mission they went on. He’d taken a pretty hard hit to the head, after all. That hadn’t gone over well with Steve, who had become intensely - annoyingly - protective. Then the headaches started coming between missions: he would wake up with one, usually after one of the nightmares that seemed to be making a resurgence. Sometimes they’d last all day. But they were more irritating than anything else; he was strong. He could handle them. He never told Steve.

 

And then a routine post-mission physical. The flight home had been hell: the changing pressure felt like it was crushing his skull. He’d almost thrown up. It was worth mentioning. 

 

He wasn’t expecting the news he got back. 

 

“I’m going to have to monitor you closely,” Dr. Monroe said gently. “It’s between you and I for now but if -- when -- you start to deteriorate, I’ll have to tell Fury. If you become a danger to anyone in the field, especially civillians--”

 

Bucky stood up forcefully then, his chair sliding backward into the wall with a crash that made Dr. Monroe jump. She didn’t get to finish her sentence before he’d stormed out of the exam room.

 

It made sense that there would be side effects from all the shit HYDRA did to him, he got that. But he’d gotten his memory back. He remembered Steve. He remembered growing up in Brooklyn. He remembered what he’d done as The Winter Soldier, as badly as he wanted those memories to stay buried. He wasn’t losing his mind. He wouldn’t. 

 

There were no more headaches between that appointment and when they were deployed for the next mission. So, there was no reason to let Steve in on it. It wasn’t true, he was fine. He felt great. 

 

It was as straightforward a mission as they come: a simple extraction from hostile territory. SHIELD secrets in the form of Stark Industries prototypes had fallen into the wrong hands. Get in, grab the tech, get out. Easy. 

 

The mission was done; all they had to do was get back to the plane and get out, when Bucky stumbled. Lights were popping behind his eyes and he couldn’t see straight. At first he worried he’d been shot. Just for a second, and then his mind went blank.

 

_He’s my mission._

 

He looked around wildly. Steve had stopped in his tracks and turned back. He was yelling something, but his voice wasn’t quite making it to Bucky’s ears. He was on his knees, clutching at his pounding skull with his right hand while his left groped for his sidearm, the metal fingers curling around the butt of it as he collapsed.

 

**Anger**

 

“ _How could you not tell me.”_ That was the first thing Bucky heard when he woke up, his eyes not even fully open yet, the stark lighting in the room burning them when he tried. From what he could tell he was in a hospital room, or something like it, probably back at Stark Tower. He was sure it was only him and Steve in the room. 

 

“You put all of us in danger, Bucky. You put yourself in danger...”

 

“I don’t really think that’s an issue anymore,” Bucky replied. He opened his eyes slowly, taking in Steve, who was standing over his bed, chest heaving, looking massive and menacing in that way he still couldn’t quite associate with Steve Rogers. 

 

“God damn it, Bucky, god _damn_ it,” Steve muttered, clenching his fists. Two years ago, when everything was different, Steve might have tried to hit him. It wouldn’t have hurt. Steve could never hurt him. So why was he so good at hurting Steve?

 

“As of right now you’re no longer on active duty. I can’t have you risking the lives of everyone around you when you have another episode.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

“How could you not _tell_ me.”

 

Bucky looked at him then, his face contorted in pain, his eyes very nearly watering. 

 

“Because,” he said slowly, deliberately, as if every word hurt. “That would’ve made it real.”

 

***

 

Sam caught up with Steve, who was leaning against a tree and actually breathing hard, like the run had tired him out. He’d lapped Sam three times, not said a word, and then just stopped.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” Sam asked. “You’re still embarrassing me out there, but you’re no _fun_ about it today.”

 

Steve glared at him.

 

“What happened? Something go wrong on the last mission? Man, I told you I should’ve come.”

 

“Bucky’s dying.” 

 

Sam’s playful grin dropped and a hand shot up to his mouth in shock. “What? How? He get hurt? What happened?”

 

“No,” Steve replied. “Didn’t get hurt. Almost got himself killed, because he couldn’t be bothered to tell me what’s going on.”

 

“And what _is_ going on?” Sam pressed. Steve looked at him, his eyes burning with a mix of sorrow and anger that Sam had never seen in them before. 

 

“His brain,” Steve started, his voice catching. “All those times HYDRA wiped his memory. It’s done something to his head. There’s scarring, right on his brain. We knew that from when we brought him in but it’s getting worse. And he’s dying.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“Yeah. I _just_ got him back, Sam. I mean for real. He’s just now the Bucky I remember, and now they’re telling me he’s gonna lose that. His mind’s gonna go, he’ll forget. Won’t know who he is. Seizures--”

 

His voice caught in his throat and his fist clenched. He wound up and landed a punch so hard on the trunk of the tree the force of it sent leaves fluttering down around them. The rough bark split his knuckles, and there was blood when he pulled back, but neither of them acknowledged it. 

 

“He didn’t _tell_ me. How could he not tell me?”

 

“How long has he known? How long... does he have?”

 

Steve shrugged. “Doctor said six months, give or take. He’s known for two. He might... he might only have four months left. He should’ve told me. That selfish bastard should have told me...”

 

“Yeah, you did just get him back,” Sam said. There was an edge in his voice that made Steve’s head jerk up. “And it’s not fair. It’s bullshit, is what it is. But are you really gonna take that out on him? You told me that when the two of you were kids he always had your back. Always. D’you think maybe he didn’t want to tell you because it was gonna hurt you? D’you think maybe he was trying to spare you that hurt? Are you gonna waste whatever time he has left being mad at him, just because he kept it from you for a few months? Because if you do, then goddamn, you are a dumbass.”

 

**Bargaining**

 

“There _has_ to be something you can do,” Steve pleaded. He’d already shoved past Happy and straight into Tony’s workshop, where he was tinkering with something or other, something that had to be of much less consequence than Bucky’s life.

 

“Steve, I don’t know what you think I can do,” Tony replied calmly. He gestured to Happy, who’d appeared in the door, to make himself scarce. This was hardly a security issue. Happy trudged off. Nobody around here would let him do his job properly.

 

“I don’t know. Build something. Whatever HYDRA did to him... there has to be something that can reverse it.”

 

“Steve,” Tony said gently. “I’m sorry. I am. If there was something I could do, I would. The only thing I can think is that the cryo they kept him in between missions slowed it down. You wanna put him back in the freezer until we figure something else out? Either way, you basically lose him. That way seems a whole lot crueler to me, though.There’s nothing - nothing that can reverse what HYDRA did to him.”

 

“I should’ve known you wouldn’t help me,” Steve spat. “You’re probably glad he’s dying. Your parents weren’t his fault, you know. Not really.”

 

Tony said nothing in response, just held Steve’s gaze with heavy, sad, sympathetic eyes that told him, unequivocally, that he was wrong.

 

***

 

“Are you quite finished traipsing around New York yelling at everyone you know?” Bucky asked when Steve finally came home. He’d moved into Steve’s a month ago after a particularly worrying episode when he’d forgotten the way to his own apartment. Steve’s he knew though. Steve’s address was one of the first things his healing mind latched onto.

 

“I’m trying to help you,” Steve said, tossing his keys with more force than was strictly necessary into the tray he kept by the door. It clattered off the shelf and onto the floor. Bucky rose from the kitchen table and crossed the small kitchen to the entry way to help retrieve the smattering of change that had rolled across the hall, but Steve pushed him back gently.

 

“Don’t. I got it.”

 

“What do you think is gonna happen if I pick up a goddamn quarter?” Bucky asked. Steve said nothing. Bucky’s temper was getting shorter lately. Was that a symptom? He should ask Dr. Monroe about that. “I swear Steve if you treat me like I’m going to fucking break...”

 

“You _are_ going to break,” Steve whispered. 

 

“No I’m fucking not!” Bucky screamed, slamming his metal fist down so hard on the counter that the corner spun off into the fridge. “Stop it! Stop tiptoeing around me, stop begging everyone to fix me when they can’t! Just... just fucking... _be here._ Be Steve. My Steve. I fucking need you...”

 

It may have been synapses in his scarred brain misfiring, or it may have just been the powerful emotion surging through him, but all of a sudden Bucky’s legs seemed to turn to jelly and he fell, hard, slumping against the broken counter. Steve was there in a second, kneeling by his side, helpless but for the arm around his shoulders and Bucky’s fists curled in his long hair as tears, held back for months - years - streamed down his cheeks.

 

“I don’t want to die, Steve,” he said. “I thought I’d have more time. I thought we’d have more time...” 

 

“Hey, Buck, listen...” Steve said helplessly. His own voice was shaking, and he knew that if they both started crying they might never stop. “Hey, stop it. Get up. You’re gonna rust that arm if you keep crying.”

 

He tried to smile then. It was easier when Bucky let out a quick laugh and looked up, his eyes still red and damp.

 

“You’re a punk, Steve.”

 

Steve grinned, but it faded as Bucky held his gaze. He cradled Bucky’s face in his hand, the face he’d seen in every dream he could remember since he came out of the ice, the face he’d thought was gone forever until it appeared in DC, vacant and angry and lost but still familiar. He brushed a tear across Bucky’s cheek just in time for another to fall and take its place. Steve leaned in, pressing his forehead to Bucky’s. 

 

“Promise me something, Steve,” Bucky said, gripping Steve’s wrist. “Promise me from here on out, it’s gonna be me and you.”

 

It was just a peck at first, not that different from the hundreds they’d traded in their youth. And then Bucky’s fists curled in Steve’s hair and he held him there as he kissed him, hard and desperately, as if trying to pull the very breath from his lungs. 

 

“Until the end of the line,” Steve whispered, when he was finally able to catch his breath.

 

**Depression**

 

Most mornings were fine. He slept longer than Steve, but when he got up - usually when Steve came home, sweaty and in need of a shower after his run, which suited Bucky just fine - he felt good. He might get a headache in the afternoon, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He’d lay in the dark, his head in Steve’s lap, Steve methodically massaging his temples. Sometimes he’d sleep. Most times he wouldn’t.

 

But some mornings were like waking up that first day in the HYDRA facility. He’d wake up to a burning in his shoulder and when he’d open his eyes, the first thing he’d see was like something out of a nightmare: a twisted metal contraption where his left arm should be; searing pain where it had been practically welded to his shoulder. And worse, the thoughts in his head in a voice he didn’t recognize. Most often it was names that he heard. Targets, he knew. Sometimes a picture, usually hazy, would form in his mind. Sometimes a file photograph; most times, a crime scene. He could remember screams. Sometimes, he could remember pleading.

 

It was Steve’s voice that brought him back.

 

_Target: Steven Rogers. Captain America._

 

“Morning Buck.”

 

_Take the shot._

 

“Where are we this morning?”

 

_Take him out._

 

“I know. Brooklyn, ’34, right? I was sixteen. You, though, you’re always gonna be a year older than me. Never thought that’d matter so much, but y’know Natasha won’t let it go...”

 

_Kill him._

 

“You thought you were hot shit with the girls back then. And y’know what, so did I. But my god, Buck. You were an idiot.”

 

_Do it--_

 

“You’re the idiot.”

 

“There you are.”

 

Steve was smiling at him, the way Steve always has, since they were kids: light, and easy, and like his day just got infinitely better. And, just slightly, relieved.

 

“It wasn’t them I wanted to impress, idiot,” Bucky said. “It was always you.”

 

“It worked, you moron.”

 

Sometimes it only took a few seconds for the haze to lift. Sometimes he felt like he was out for hours. But either way, Steve was there, patient and gentle, when he came back. He’d wrap his arms around him, pull him close, kiss his neck. It was soothing, feeling Steve’s heart, beating strong against his back. Calm and regular and real. There hadn’t been nearly enough of that in his life.

 

“You know what I’m most afraid of,” Bucky said, his fingers tracing lightly over Steve’s forearm. Steve never got used to those fingers. No matter what, he always expected warmth, despite all evidence to the contrary. But they always felt icy brushing against his arm: cold and too-hard and not enough like skin, and he was never sure if it was the metal against his skin or the mere fact of Bucky’s touch that sent a chill down his spine every time. “I’m afraid of losing this again. Those years when I didn’t know you. When I didn’t know who I was...”

 

“You didn’t know who were in DC either,” Steve said, holding him just a little tighter. “But you knew me.”

 

Bucky pulled away and sat up. He looked at Steve, his shoulders slumped forward, one leg curled under him.

 

“Of course I knew you,” Bucky admitted, staring down at his mismatched hands. “I spent so much energy when we were growing up making sure nothing bad happened to _you._ You really think some damn HYDRA brainwashing can take that away?”

 

“It’s taking away a hell of a lot more than that,” Steve said. He looked at Bucky’s hands too, watched as they both curled into fists; his right arm trembling, his left still and solid and inhumanly strong. 

 

“When this first happened, I was worried most about what was gonna happen to you. That was why I didn’t tell you right away. What were you gonna do without me? But you’re gonna be fine, Steve. You’re Captain America. You have the Avengers.” He laughed bitterly. “God knows Tony’s not shedding a tear over this.”

 

“He doesn’t hate you.”

 

“He should.”

 

Bucky looked at him then, his eyes wide and too bright, filled with the anger and hurt and confusion he’d seen in them entirely too much when Bucky got stuck in his memories. 

 

“I guess I had this coming,” Bucky said after a long time. “All those things I did. There had to be consequences.”

 

“Don’t say that Bucky, that wasn’t your fault,” Steve insisted. Bucky brushed him off.

 

“It doesn’t matter. It was me. I killed people, I tried to kill you. And now my brain is turning into mush and I’m turning into _him_ again. That’s where I was this morning. I was supposed... I was supposed to kill you.”

 

“Yeah, but Buck, you didn’t. And you won’t, and I _know_ you won’t.”

 

Bucky smiled bitterly and shook his head. “No, because even if I tried, you can fight me now. You haven’t needed me since 1941.”

 

“I wouldn’t have made it to 1941 without you, Buck,” Steve replied almost angrily. “I wouldn’t have made it through losing my mother. I never would’ve done anything, and hell, if it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have even crashed that plane into the ocean, which means I wouldn’t have been frozen down there and brought back after 70 years. I wouldn’t be here right now. _We_ wouldn’t be here right now.”

 

Bucky swallowed hard, brought his knees to his chest and rested both arms on them. After a moment of silence he looked at Steve out of the corner of his eye, his trademark, smug Bucky Barnes smirk planted firmly, if a little forced, on his face.

 

“Do _not_ blame me for the fact that your dumb ass couldn’t land a damn plane.”

 

Steve laughed, but it caught in his throat and came out as a sob. A knife to Bucky’s heart would have hurt less than that sound, so alien coming from Steve. He sat up, a little straighter, and slung his left arm around Steve’s shoulders, pulling him in. He’d done it countless times when they were younger: it was always easy; he had at least 60 pounds on the kid. It should have been harder now that Steve was bigger than him, but he still folded easily against Bucky’s chest. Maybe it was the added strength of the metal arm. Or maybe it was because right there, his head pressed to Bucky’s chest just over his heart (inches from the prosthesis that had done so much damage but never to Steve), was exactly where Steve wanted to be.

 

Steve hadn’t cried since the day his mother died. At least not when Bucky was there to see it. But a dam had opened, and Steve clung to him, not wanting to let go but knowing he’d have to all too soon. Bucky’s cool metal fingers traced a pattern on Steve’s shoulder - a star, Steve realized, like Bucky’s own, and he cried harder.

 

“Jesus, Steve, what _are_ you gonna do without me?” Bucky asked quietly.

 

**Acceptance**

 

****“Are you sure this is a good idea? Getting involved with him... now?” Sam asked, gesturing behind Steve to the closed bedroom door. Steve never tried to hide it. In fact he’d told Natasha the day after he’d first kissed Bucky. He’d made it clear to everyone at Stark Tower that he intended to spend as much time as he could at home.

 

“The thing is, with me and Bucky, we were always... involved,” Steve answered. “Bucky’s always been it for me, you know? Nothing’s really changed there, just... we’re not denying it anymore.”

 

He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at the door, behind which Bucky was still sleeping. He was sleeping more than ever, and it worried Steve. At least when he slept, though, he wasn’t in pain. Or so Steve hoped.

 

“I lost him once, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I hate watching him fall again, but at leas this time, I can hang on a little longer.”

 

Sam didn’t bring it up again. He understood. 

 

***

****Bucky outlived his initial prognosis, but it didn’t take long before he wondered if that was as great as Steve kept half-heartedly assuring him it was. Eight months on from that first visit to Dr. Monroe, his days deteriorated into a haze of confusion. It took him a second to remember who Steve was sometimes, and he hated the sadness in his eyes when he realized he hadn’t even responded to his own name in too long. He was sleeping more than half the day, and when he was awake, he was confused or dizzy or in pain.

 

He was ready to go. But Steve wouldn’t leave his side. 

 

It was late afternoon. Bucky had woken up that morning trapped somewhere during the Cold War in his mind. Steve talked him through it; got him to methodically talk him through his mission, his target, what he knew about the situation (after all, Steve reminded him, he’d slept through the whole thing). After two and a half tense hours, Bucky came back. The headache set in almost immediately afterwards. It was so bad he’d thrown up twice, and spent the rest of the morning laying in the dark, his head in Steve’s lap, a cool cloth draped over his eyes. It wasn’t helping. 

 

“Check again,” he moaned, turning his head slightly to the side. “Are you _sure_ my brain isn’t leaking out of my ear, because oh my _god_ it feels like it.”

 

“Stop being so dramatic, Buck,” Steve said, laughing gently, but immediately regretted it. It wasn’t funny. Bucky was weaker than he’d ever seen him. Steve hadn’t seen him eat in two days, and he looked thin and pale. It wasn’t going to be much longer.

 

“This isn’t so bad, you know,” Bucky said. “I mean, it hurts a lot, and it sucks, but it’s time, don’t you think?”

 

“Don’t say that,” Steve said sternly. Bucky smiled. Steve being authoritative was still hilarious to him. Hilarious and a little alluring. He shifted position slightly in Steve’s lap.

 

“I mean,” he continued, almost wistfully. “You and I, we’ve lived long enough. If this whole super soldier thing never happened, we would’ve lived normal lives, and we would’ve died long ago. I mean, you especially, you probably would’ve caught your death from a stiff breeze, or something.”

 

Steve’s arm tightened around Bucky’s chest. “If it wasn’t for the super soldier thing, you would’ve died in that HYDRA facility.”

 

Bucky sighed. “Would’ve saved a lot of people a lot of pain.”

 

“Stop that,” Steve said, not quite able to keep the edge out of his voice. “Don’t say things like that.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky sighed. With one swipe of his left arm he flung the cloth away from his eyes and hurled it across the room as he sat up. He squinted, even at the low light, and gripped Steve’s shoulder: the mere act of sitting up made him dizzy. “I’m sorry. But look at me. I am almost a hundred years old, after all.”

 

Steve forced a smile and leaned toward him, snaking an arm around his waist. “It looks good on you.”

 

Bucky smiled weakly, but slid his arms around Steve’s neck and pulled him close, letting Steve push him back, his knee working Bucky’s legs apart, hand running over hisscarred shoulder, tracing down the metal scales of his arm. Bucky jerked it away, only to curl the cold fingers around Steve’s neck and pull him down, parting his lips slightly and flicking his tongue across them an instant before Steve kissed him.

 

*******

 

Bucky slept afterwards, as peacefully as he had in weeks, his back pressed to Steve’s chest. It was early evening, and Steve was wide awake, but Bucky’s breathing was shallow, and he didn’t dare get up. He didn’t dare leave him.

 

At 2:27 in the morning - the numbers on the digital clock burned themselves into his mind forever; he would replace it months later with an old analog clock because he couldn’t bear the numbers taunting him - Bucky stopped breathing. Steve felt it immediately: he was wide awake, his arm locked tightly around Bucky’s waist, and he’d felt the rhythmic movement in his hips stop.

 

“Bucky,” Steve whispered, knowing it was useless. He leaned up, rolled Bucky onto his back, and patted his face. Nothing. “Bucky, come on.”

 

He tried mouth-to-mouth, but it was just to feel Bucky’s lips one more time. He tried CPR, but he knew he was wasting his time. There was only one thing left to do. And he would, when he was ready.

 

Steve settling back down next to Bucky, buried his face in Bucky’s chest, and cried.

 

It took less than twenty minutes for Natasha to get there after she got Steve’s message. She came alone, like he asked. This wasn’t Stark business, not yet.

 

She found them in Steve’s room. Steve sat on the floor, his back against the bed, one leg stretched out in front of him and his head in his hands. Behind him on the bed was Bucky, sprawled out on his back, the metal arm draped over the edge of the bed next to Steve, cold and lifeless.

 

“He’s gone, Nat. Bucky’s gone.”

 

James Buchanan Barnes was buried at Arlington, his casket draped in the American flag. A hero’s burial. Steve stayed by the grave afterwards, long after Bucky had been lowered into it, long after it had been filled in. It had been a warm day, but as t the sun set behind him, casting a long shadow across the fresh grave, Steve felt a breeze rise up, like icy fingers brushing the back of his neck.

 

He smiled, because it felt like Bucky.

 


End file.
